Dynamic climate-adaptive design: A key to realizing future-proof energy efficiency in building sector

Abstract

Being vulnerable to climate change, building energy designs based on the present-time weather conditions might lose their efficiency over time and diverge from their initial designated performance. The idealistic approach to realizing lifelong energy efficiency accommodates building energy systems with not only drivers for survival from upcoming changes but also possibilities to thrive under new boundaries. Such a notion requires designers to step beyond the regular static-based building energy design mindset and move towards considering future uncertainties and variabilities due to the changing climate. In line with this need, the present study investigated the boundaries of climate change integration into building energy designs and proposed a conceptual framework that provides dynamic climate-adaptivity. Climate-adaptive designs, in any field, cannot be pictured without time-varying nature. Outlined framework encompassed such characteristic as its innate component and implemented it in a practical way suited for the building industry. A case-study building was studied based on this framework and compared with a conventional static-based energy-optimized design. Results indicated that the proposed framework has a strong potential in incorporating the variability of climate change into building energy designs and reducing energy demand by 23%, on average. Furthermore, it was concluded that static-based building energy designs are subject to losing their efficiency over time and are suboptimal in future climate boundaries.